


Eternal Sunshine of a Spaniel's Mind

by messofthejess



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Point of View, Dogs, Gen, Introspection, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25499899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messofthejess/pseuds/messofthejess
Summary: There was one person who stood by Agatha Wellbelove through her move to California, and they weren't even a person. They were a bewildered Cavalier King Charles Spaniel whose nose twitches at magic.This is Lucy the Dog's story.
Relationships: Agatha Wellbelove & Lucy the Dog, Agatha Wellbelove & Some Inner Peace
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19
Collections: Agatha Wellbelove fics, Golden Days: a Simon Snow Series zine





	Eternal Sunshine of a Spaniel's Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This was my very first time participating in a zine. I know it wouldn't have gone half so smoothly without the likes of KrisRix at the helm, and I know the rest of the zine contributors and I are grateful to all the work Kris put into Golden Days. I'd like to personally thank Kris for being so flexible when I emailed saying I was completely changing topics for my fic. You're the best~
> 
> To my fellow zine contributors: what a privilege to have been able to participate in this amazing thing we created together. It's been difficult for me to take on much new stuff lately, but being able to go through the zine bit by bit on my own terms shows me that I'm surrounded by extremely talented people of all stripes. Thank you for letting me be part of the Golden Days Zine with you. 
> 
> Special thanks to BasicBathsheba, who beta-read this thing, assured me that people would, in fact, not think this was weird, and who continues to encourage me to keep going. Thanks isn't a big enough word for what you do, but it'll have to be for now. 
> 
> This fic is dedicated to all the pets in this world. They hold millions of stories which they can never tell us and we will never know. They see us through our darkest days, and through it all, they love us unconditionally.

**Lucy**

I don’t remember much before this morning. Most of my days blur together into the same old routine. Wake up, scratch my owner awake, eat kibble. Maybe chase a few squirrels if I’m feeling rambunctious. Plenty of naps and ear scratches.

My typical day doesn’t usually have explosions. Or magic.

Humans don’t understand why we dogs choose to bark at the things we do. But in my experience? Nine times out of ten, if we won’t stop barking after someone who walks by us on the street, that person is a magician. They do their best to hide from other humans—and usually they’re successful—but there’s no hiding from us. Wherever I am now, there’s a whole bunch of magicians firing off spells, not even trying to hide from anyone else who might see. The air is so thick with magic, my nose hasn’t quit twitching since I slipped out of the car.

I didn’t plan on going on a car ride today. I didn’t plan on ending up on the outskirts of a magic battle! All I wanted was to go on a morning walk with Clarence and then doze off by the fire while he watched his usual Christmas specials on the telly. Yet somehow I’m here, and I didn’t ask to be.

It’s all too much. I flop down in the snow, pressing my belly into the cold. If I close my eyes, I can almost see the brick fireplace, the soft, worn-out carpet beneath me. Clarence in his high-backed chair, eyes half-closed as he leans back. Will I ever see him again?

I’m home, I’m home, I’m home…

I hear running.

Humans can’t run across the snow as well as a dog can. No claws to dig in, and they have half the legs we do. Whoever is running sounds like they can’t stop, their feet slipping over the powdery white. I perk up one ear and crack open one eye, just in time to see a pair of fuzzy sheepskin boots dart by. They pound away down the slope a little further, but suddenly they come back, slower this time. Each footstep crunches into the snow deliberately.

“ _Oh my God_ ,” someone whispers above me. “ _You poor thing._ ”

My nape hairs tick up a bit at that. I object to being called a _thing_ , though I don’t think I can argue with being called _poor_ . I’m hardly the picture of composure, given the circumstances.

“ _All alone in the snow_ .”

A warm hand slides underneath me, and suddenly I’m lifted up into a pair of arms covered in sparkling pink wool. I didn’t know sheep could sparkle. “ _I can relate._ ” 

I glance up at the person holding me. The saddest pair of brown eyes stare back down at me, brimming over with tears. Honest puppy-dog eyes—and I should know what they look like, I’ve seen my own reflection.

“ _We have to keep going,_ ” she tells me, her voice barely above a whisper. A loud explosion thunders behind us, and she whips her head over her shoulder in a panic, blonde hair flying. “ _Now we_ **_really_ ** _have to keep going!_ ”

Her legs, which have been quivering underneath me the entire time, finally take off running again, and it’s all I can do to not fall out of her grip. She keeps telling me she’s sorry, sometimes yelling over the sound of magic cracking through the atmosphere. After a while, I get the feeling she’s not actually apologizing to me, but to someone I can’t see. Someone who isn’t with us.

I’m in the front seat of a Volvo, a seat belt haphazardly strapped across my small chest, when I realize I’m probably not going home again. 

****  
  


My new home is very _pink_. Well, Agatha’s bedroom is pink, anyway, and that’s where I spend most of my time, curled up on the duvet and nestled in among the numerous throw pillows. I’m not sure why she has so many pillows when she only sleeps on two. Humans are odd.

Agatha is the one who found me in the snow on Christmas. She lives here with her parents and a maid, but I hardly see anyone other than Agatha: I mostly keep to her bedroom unless I have to go outside. The smell of magic is so strong everywhere else in the house that my nose twitches constantly. It takes all my effort not to constantly sneeze. This bedroom, though, is the only place that feels normal. If I didn’t see Agatha tuck her wand away in its special case on her nightstand, I would have never known she was a magician. She doesn’t smell like magic at all. 

I think, if given the choice, Agatha wouldn’t _want_ to be a magician. She rarely uses spells around me, only “ ** _Some like it hot!_ **” if she lets her mug of tea get cold. Whenever she does use her wand, she squints like it pains her to push the magic out of her body. She seems far more content to just exist, like Clarence did. 

Agatha doesn’t want to be in this house, either. She’s told me as much at night, whispered into my ear, when she’s sprawled out on her bed and she invites me to lay my head on her chest. 

“We don’t belong here, Lucy,” she tells me, rubbing the tip of my ear between her fingers. “We belong somewhere brighter than England, where the sun shines all the time. Someplace dazzling.”

It’s still weird to hear myself be called Lucy. I was Bella before, when I was with Clarence. Lucy fits just fine, I suppose, although Agatha’s voice hitches when she says it. Like she’s thinking of someone else from long ago with the same name. Whoever that was must have been really important to Agatha.

“You know where we ought to go? California. It sounds just _lush_ there, don’t you think? Palm trees and beaches and warmth inside and out. I’m sick of feeling damp all the time here! It’s like you can never dry off.” 

She’s trying to convince her parents to let her take something called a “gap year” in California. I’m not exactly sure what a gap year is, but I guess it’s something young humans take when they don’t have a plan for what to do with the rest of their lives. I’ve never been happier to be a dog—nobody expects a dog to plan anything, let alone the rest of their lives.

Agatha’s parents don’t seem too keen on the idea of Agatha not having a plan. She gets in screaming matches with her mum about it quite often, though it’s usually more Agatha screaming in frustration and her mum being irritatingly calm and patient. Then the bedroom door slams open, and Agatha flings herself onto the bed, angry tears beading in her eyes but not falling. She never cries all the way. Just sniffles a lot until I lick her cheek and coax a shaky laugh out of her. I like that I can make her feel better, like sunshine, even if it’s only for a little while.

There is a pink floral duffel bag that sits open on the bedroom floor, right next to Agatha’s closet. It’s been there since the night we came to her house, when she flung it out of her closet, still in a panic and wanting to leave that minute. Of course, her parents convinced her to stay, and we’re still here. She hasn’t packed anything in the duffel bag yet, but I think she keeps it out to remind herself of what she wants. What she needs.

We were running away from something bad that day when she found me in the snow, something that still makes her shake and mumble at night. And we’re not done running yet.

***  
  


I didn’t know California would be so _bright_. 

Everyone around here wears sunglasses, even some of the dogs in the neighborhood. Agatha hasn’t gotten on board with that trend yet, but she has bought me a different colored bandana to wear around my neck for every day of the week. She also bought me a sun hat to match hers, but I think it makes a far better Frisbee.

She’s a lot lighter since we arrived here. Back in England, it seemed like she always had a weight hanging on her shoulders, pulling her down until she could hardly stand. Now when we go out for walks, she actually smiles. Maybe it’s the Americans rubbing off on her—they’re so friendly, always asking to pet me. She’s traded all her jumpers and boots for swishy sundresses and sandals. Much better fit for her, I think, but I’m not much of a fashion critic.

There are still times when the clouds roll back in, though. We were here for about two months when a thick envelope plastered with stamps came by post. Agatha had been drinking one of her cold teas with ice cubes that clink inside the glass, and she dropped the whole thing on the kitchen floor, the envelope clutched in one shaking hand. She spent the next few days locked up in her room, only coming out to hook the leash to my collar with ink-stained hands and go for a run.

On the third night of her hiding away, I nosed myself into her bedroom. Agatha was cross-legged on the floor, hunched over papers sprawled around her on the rug, a pen shoved into her messy bun. Her eyes sagged as she rested her chin on her hand. When I licked her bare knee, I thought she was going to jump out of her skin.

“Lucy! Oh Morgana, what time is it?” She scrambled for her phone and clicked the screen on. “You must be _starving_ , I’m so sorry.”

I plopped down on several of her papers, hoping she would get the message: I wasn’t starved for food so much as attention.

“Oh. I guess I’ve ignored you quite a bit lately, haven’t I? Sorry, it’s just…” She gestured helplessly around. “You think you’ve left everything behind, and somehow it manages to find you anyway.”

Then she put me in her lap and, scratching behind my ears, started to tell me everything. How when she found me that day in the snow, she was running away from a war she never asked to be a part of. How she used to love this boy who was chosen to save the world (the magical one, anyway), and how she used to love this other boy who was a little too dangerous for her, and maybe she still loved them both in a way, but she chose to love herself more. How all of this led to California, with Agatha’s wand locked up an ocean away in her old bedroom, along with her past. But a very important man died in the war, one who arguably started the whole thing. And now some other very important people wanted to know everything she knew.

“All I did was run, Lucy,” she whispered to me after the light had faded away outside her window and night seeped in. “All I wanted was an ordinary life.”

Then she set me aside, pulled the pen out of her hair, and went back to writing. A few days later, we walked to the post office and dropped an envelope thicker than the one that arrived a week earlier into the hands of the exhausted clerk behind the counter. I don’t think Agatha quit smiling for the rest of the day after that.

We’re moving soon, with a couple girls Agatha met while we were out getting tacos one day. It means we won’t get to sit on the beach every night and watch the golden rays of sun stretch out over the sand, but it’ll be closer for Agatha to go to school. (Humans go to school _forever_ , it seems like.) She wants to learn how to help animals like me when they’re sick, maybe horses, too. I guess I can’t hate the vet if Agatha’s one.

There’s a different kind of magic that hangs in the air here in California, one that can’t be channeled through a wand. Something ordinary that doesn’t make my nose itch, but makes everything seem a little more dazzling. And I think that kind of magic suits Agatha perfectly. 

I don’t think we need to run anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> You should come nag me on Tumblr (same username as here) to write some more Carry On fic.


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